


'Cause I'm feeling a lot, tonight, my love

by AgapantoBlu



Category: DCU (Comics), Midnighter (Comics), Midnighter and Apollo (Comics), The Authority
Genre: Badassery And Love, Infanticide, M/M, Mention of - Freeform, More Than One Comic Temporary Line, References to Depression, Sometimes Canon Says Shit That It's Our Duty To Ignore, also, canon character death, in chapter two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2019-08-11 01:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16465802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgapantoBlu/pseuds/AgapantoBlu
Summary: Midnighter turns in his arms to hide his face in Apollo’s chest and digs his fingers in his husband’s back. Apollo wishes he was chubbier, meatier, to cuddle his husband with softness instead of hardwired muscles. It’d be what they both need and deserve, after today.Just, something gentler.***Not-necessarily connected snippets about World's Finest Couple. Some happier, some sadder, some softer.





	1. Diplomacy is an acquired taste

 

 

Sparkling dresses, sparkling wine, sparkling chandeliers. Before  _actually_  visiting Hell, this is roughly how Midnighter envisioned it to be: full of pretentious rich assholes complaining over this or that among themselves.

For someone like him, who spent five years on the streets, sleeping under bridges and taking full advantage of a physiology that didn’t need food or sleep to function and holding onto only that much sanity that took shape of another warmer body by his, listening to anyone bitching about taxes on oil production made his fists itch to punch.

That was probably half the reason Apollo kept refilling his hands with glasses. No,  _flutes_. Because fuck if these people had normal shit in their homes.

Apollo slipped another full _flute_  in his hand and gently squeezed his wrist as they watched the waiter disappear with their empty glasses. A woman with pearls at her neck bumped into him by taking a step backward, and glared at his retreating form until he’d disappear, just to start bitching about personnel manners to the circle of people around her.

_Damn_.

“This is bullcrap,” Midnighter stated, not for the first time. Nor for the last, if they didn’t hightail it out of there soon enough. “I hate these people.”

“You hate people, period,” Apollo chided, though the transparent glass couldn’t hide the little smile on his lips.

“Not true,” Midnighter countered, just to counter. “I like you.”

It was worth forgetting about everything around him and letting his computer’s bitching to go uncared for, just to see his husband’s smile light up, brighter than his own self after a sunbath above Earth’s atmosphere. Jesus, even rich people had to have broom closets, right? These assholes didn’t even want them here, they wouldn’t notice of the two of them disappeared for a little bit.

“Don’t even think about it,” Apollo said, cutting his train of thoughts short and pulling Midnighter’s eyes off the movements of his lips. “We’re here on diplomatic duty, remember.”

“We’re here because I’d rather someone cut me open and ripped my organs out again, than letting Winged-Ratman get anywhere near Jenny. Fucker.”

Midnighter may have liked Nightwing, respected the superhero he was, but he was not going to forget anytime soon that the kid was barely in his twenties and for how long he’d been fighting under the Bat. Nor he was going to forget all the other Bat kids.

Bruce had his own parenting style, whatever. Midnighter’s didn’t involve fighting crime at night in a kinky spandex onesie in the list of after-dinner activities.

Apollo, for once, didn’t chide his language nor his outward hostility, no matter that a lady close to them turned with an outraged expression. He just stared her down until she hurriedly put some distance between them. Finally, he sighed. “I don’t like this any more than you do,” he offered placatingly. “Bruce invited the Authority, someone had to come.”

“Angie could have.”

“Angie is nine pints of hyper-advanced nanoblood cells and Batman loves some nice technology. We don’t want to risk him trying to study her.”

“Jack Hawksmoor.”

“He can’t stay in Gotham long. The spirit of this city is as corrupted as its streets, you know it.”

“Swi-”

“She’d kill everyone in this room the moment she head one misogynist comment. Spare her the headache.”

Midnighter was very well aware he was gripping at straws when he offered, “The Doctor?”

Apollo just stared silently back at him. Last time they met the Doctor, he was smoking weed upside down on the couch in his room on the Carrier.

Midnighter saw both why that would be a bad idea and how hilarious it would have been to unleash such a mess on Gotham’s upper society.

Last option would have been the Authority’s actual leader, Jenny Quantum, which was when Midnighter had groaned in the middle of the meeting and very begrudgingly offered himself and Apollo for the task.

Angie had giggled at them.  _“Think about it, World’s Finest Couple will finally be in the same room as World’s Two Finest. You can establish your dominance.”_

_“Apollo and I are gay and married. We already established dominance,”_ he had quipped her.

He meant it. Those were very valid reasons to declare him and Apollo the best. Also, Midnighter was taller than Bruce.

"Hey,” he stopped frowning to look at Apollo. “I love you.”

Though the words were no news - and still sent his computer on rebooting sequence because, how?, how did Apollo love him?, he couldn’t love himself still -, he was a bit caught by surprise when his brain told him Apollo was leaning down to kiss him.

The bastard stopped a breath away from his lips. “Bruce and Clark incoming,” he whispered.

“Fucking French me, then.”

Apollo didn’t French him, sadly. He seemed to be content kissing his lips gently and softly, though Midnighter could tell from the sound of steps coming and stopping that they went at it for long enough to make their spectators at least a bit uncomfortable.

Still would have preferred some more tongue.

Someone cleared their throat. Apollo pushed a bit harder on Midnighter’s mouth before lazily pulling back. Rather than paying any mind to the new arrivals, Midnighter stared at the way Apollo’s mouth shined wet under the lights as it pulled into a vaguely smug bent. Like a cat who got the cream and knew there was no proof.

God, how he loved this man.

“Pulaski. Trent.”

“Damn, you pulled the aliases,” Midnighter finally turned to smile at Wayne. “I’ve been waiting to call you by your Fursona all night.”

Bruce frowned just lightly. Midnighter savored the moment Nightwing would call and yell at him for putting him into the position of having to explain what a furry was to his boss-slash-dad. The little joys of life.

By the imperceptible lift of the chest, Midnighter guessed Clark was fighting against the impulse to just fly himself somewhere far, far away. “We were hoping Miss Quantum would join us too. There are a few matters we would have liked to discuss with her.”

Midnighter frowned. “You, two adult men, alone with my little daughter? Fucking no.”

“She’s a century child. One of the most powerful creatures in the world.”

“ _And_ , as my better half said, our daughter.” Apollo was the sun, warm and bright in everything he did, yet the glance he sent Bruce was pure ice, like liquid nitrogen. “You’ll have to do with us old queens.”

Oh, Midnighter liked that title. Apollo always laughed the loudest when he heard that. He took his chance to slip an arm around his husband’s hips, and Apollo immediately moved one around his shoulders. Feeling their bodies touch on his side, from head to toe almost, made him even more acutely aware of the polite arm-length of distance between Bruce and Clark. He smiled, all teeth.

“So? What business do you have with our little girl?”

 

 

Midnighter’s back hit the wall and the computer screeched, furious, when he did nothing to escape the pressure all over him, hot, heavy,  _muscular._ Instead, he ran his hands down every fiber in Apollo’s back, savoring, until he finally got to his ass and squeezed it.

Apollo bit down hard on his neck.

“Fuck!”

“I thought that’s where this was leading, love.”

“Then why am I still dressed?”

The next moment, all the buttons from his shirt — and damn, it was his nicest one — were bouncing on the floor. The ripped cloth curled down there fast enough and Apollo spared only his necktie, and only to tighten it lightly against his pulse. “I was wondering the same.”

They hit almost every piece of furniture on their path as they stumbled through the apartment, the one in between realities, toward the bedroom. The Carrier was waiting for them, but it could survive another hour or two or six.

Apollo picked him up. The asshole was well aware of what effect such display of strength had on Midnighter’s already fraying control. “God, I love you so much.”

“So do I, honey,” and though the name was supposed to carry some kind of sarcasm, it came out still sweetly worshipping. Apollo stripped himself fast of both his own shirt and his pants, and Midnighter pulled himself to sit on the edge of the bed to get a chance to mouth at the dip on the hip, just above the hem of the boxers briefs. “Pretty sure Greyson got a hard on from you telling off his dad.”

Midnighter’s laughter made the elastic band snap from his teeth and hit Apollo’s skin with an obscene noise. “Good, the little bird could use some healthier examples of family.”

Apollo pushed him down on his back again and climbed over him. “Family, uh?”

“Don’t get sappy on me now, Apollo. We’ve been married and had a girl for years now, too late for the mushy feelings.”

“You love it when I get mushy.”

“I love it when you get horny,” Midnighter replied, pushing his hips upward to brush his clothed erection against the other’s body. “Are you going to be anytime soon?”

Apollo didn’t answer, just kissed the sass straight out of his mouth.

 

 

“Seriously?”

“Jenny, for fuck’s sake, how many times already?!”

He should have probably scurried for some clothes, pulled the blankets up to his chin, but this wasn’t enough of a surprising occurrence that Midnighter felt it due to leave his nesting spot against Apollo’s side. It was fucking December and his husband was a human furnace; Jenny could fucking learn how to knock.

“Give us ten minutes and we can all have breakfast together,” Apollo offered, and Midnighter expressed his disapproval with the plan by smashing his face deeper into his pectoral. “Make it fifteen.”

Jenny sighed. She leant on the doorframe and pulled out a cigarette, lightening it up despite Apollo’s half heartened protests. As she blew smoke all over  _their room_ , she shook her head. “We got news you left the party hours ago. Jack was kinda worried that something might have happened, when you didn’t show up at the Carrier.”

Apollo snorted. “What did Angie say?”

“She called him a  _naive, sweet child_ , and told him to let you have your victory celebration. Congrats on pissing off the most famous superheroes to ever exist, by the way. I really love all the new paperwork I got.”

“Everything for you, sweetie pie.” Midnighter smiled and, eyes still closed, let his computer make him roll to the side just enough to miss the empty packet of cigarettes Jenny threw at his head. “Bat and Super made it far too easy, by the way.”

“They want to talk about a way for them to reach us in case of need,” Jenny informed them. “Bruce was rather disappointed when I told him they had to make do with my dad’s boy toy.”

“Please, tell me Dick was there to see that.”

Midnighter was still holding onto every scrap of sleep he could get so he didn’t notice, but Apollo saw the smirk on Jenny’s lips and rolled his eyes. Like father, like daughter, it seemed. “He was rather concerned with reassuring everyone that you and him are not, in fact, having an affair. Though I’m not sure whether it was because he was scared of Batman, me or this whole thing potentially reaching you, Apollo.”

“I should really meet him in person,” the man said. “I hate that he honestly thinks I’m some kind of brute.”

“But you are,” Midnighter interjected. The smile on his lips promised nothing good. “A real  _beast._ ”

Apollo laughed.

Jenny made a disgusted sound. “And this is my clue to  _leave_. I’ll tell the others I checked on you. Just keep your com links open, if you decide to stay here much longer.  _Door._ ”

Midnighter cracked an eye open to see her back disappear into a rectangle of distorted light. “She’s so fucking badass,” he said. “Took that from you.”

“Oh, really?”

“Of fucking course.” With the light of a potential dawn filling the room in orange light, Midnighter pulled himself up on one hand, and stared down as Apollo resettled himself with a hand under his own nape and the other resting on his stomach. He looked like a lazy cat waiting to be fed, and his husband obliged by bending forward and depositing a fast kiss on his lips. Then Midnighter pulled back and scowled. “As long as she doesn’t take after you in the suit-ripping department too.”

Apollo barked a laughter, but grabbed Midnighter’s hair and pulled him down in a deeper kiss nonetheless.

 

 


	2. Echoes

 

 

That the Midnighter doesn’t have nightmares is the biggest scam the Midnighter ever pulled off. Apollo watches people call him psychopath, ask how can he even sleep at night, and has to bite his tongue not to say he doesn’t.

He used not to, that’s true.

Midnighter didn’t have nightmares, before Jenny Quartz. He’d be there for Apollo’s, gently coaxing him back to awareness with hushed promises of protection and safety and love. A bit dirty in street filth, a bit tired out from paranoia, a bit starving for normalcy, clothes and a roof and a bed and a shower and food without taste and sleep that wouldn’t replenish, but still love. Such precious love.

Now, though, it is a toss up as to whom will wake up to the other’s pained moans and breathy begs. Ironic, how both murmur the same thing,  _stop, please, stop_ , and both to the same target.

The first night after it all goes to shit, Apollo wraps his arms around Midnighter’s chest and arms to stop him from hauling himself at the wall, head first, again and again.

“I’ll fucking smash it,” he hisses. “Let me go, Apollo, I will fucking  _wreck it_.”

The computer keeps buzzing in his head, feeling unthreatened in its sturdiness. Apollo is pretty sure Midnighter would kill himself before managing to break Bendix’s creations, so he just holds on through the trashing and cursing and yelling, until Midnighter falls to his knees.

He follows, of course he does, and gathers him against his chest. “You had to,” he whispers, though he’s not sounding too sure of himself.

He was, when they decided, but it’s harder when the danger is gone, the night is pitchy black and their bed in unmade. The Carrier is big and sentient and knows better than to let the sound of their misery reach their daughter’s crib. It holds all the baby’s stuff so easily, made room for it silently. It could have hold twice as much. If they’d just looked better.

Midnighter turns in his arms to hide his face in Apollo’s chest and digs his fingers in his husband’s back. Apollo wishes he was chubbier, meatier, to cuddle his husband with softness instead of hardwired muscles. It’d be what they both need and deserve, after today.

Just, something gentler.

“She wasn’t evil yet,” Midnighter is sobbing. “There should have been other ways. What fucking use is this fucking computer if it can’t find another way when it matters?!”

“It found the only one to give our Jenny back,” Apollo whispers, because that’s all he thinks about now. All he can think about. If he starts considering other options, he’ll go crazy. He feels so sorry for his husband, whose computer won’t let do anything but considering other options. “Midnighter. Love. M.”

Apollo is supposed to be the support now, the pillar. He’s the muscled arm of Authority, after all, holding someone up for a few minutes shouldn’t be so hard.

And yet.

“M, M, M, love, please, I—“ This isn’t about him, this shouldn’t be about him. But his mouth is open and he can’t stop it. "I couldn’t do this without her. Love? Love, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you had to do it, I wish there could have been another way, I wish someone else could have done it, I wish I could have been there with you, I wish so many things, love. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Midnighter holds him tighter. He returns the gesture. The Carrier raises the temperature of the room so the floor under their knees is no longer freezing.

The cold inside stays.

 

 

It’s years later that they fight someone and a voice carries through the battlefield, _where’s your other daughter?_ , and Midnighter goes off.

Apollo stops trying to help him, because this is a flashback their share. Sometimes there’s nothing to hit. But sometimes there is, and Midnighter has the right to hit it, repeatedly and violently, his whole body coiled tight, his voice a roar in the back of his throat.

One by one the others finish with their share and join him, but Midnighter is far from done. Apollo stares.

“Maybe you should go to him,” Swift offers in a low voice, like a wanderer stopping in a temple that’s not theirs, respectful. “He’s hurting.”

Apollo doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t want to yell at her.

Midnighter finishes an hour later. He returns to his husband covered in blood and gore, hands as empty as his eyes. “Where is she?”

“Home.”

Midnighter nods. Apollo gathers him gently in his arms and takes them both to the skies.

 

 

Sometimes, Jenny looks at her fathers when they don’t know.

Her past self was there to see them happen, like a firework going off. A spark in the dark, barely visible, going higher and higher and then exploding in brightness and beauty and wonder. She thinks it must have been quite a show, to witness.

When the Carrier picked them up, Apollo and Midnighter had already been a product of much more than Henry Bendix’s craziness. They had been made more than human by surgeries and torture and scalpels and death, true, but they had also been made compassionate by homelessness, fear, hurt and loneliness. They’d been made brave by loss and pain and hopeful eyes. They’d been made loving by each others. They weren’t complete, though, not yet.

Angie told her once, that Jenny made them whole. That she made them fathers and a family and resilient and eternal.

Sadly, both Jenny’s did. But one also made them fragile and broken as Henry never managed.

Sometimes Midnighter comes for her, usually at night when she’s in her bed. She pretends to be asleep through his check up of the room, of the doors and windows, of every security system. She pretends to be relaxed and unaware as he takes silent steps to her bed and stands, motionless, to listen to her breathing for endless minutes. She pretends not to hear when he starts whispering _forgive me_ , in the dark, until Apollo comes to get him.

_She killed me_ , she wants to tell him. _You had my corpse in your hands and cried for me. I know you never wanted to kill her, but I have nothing to forgive you for._

_Daddy? Daddy, please. You know I love you, don’t you? Do you know Daddy Apollo loves you? You’re so loved, Daddy. Daddy?_

_Daddy, don’t go._

_Please._

 

 

Knowing some things have to happen sucks ass.

 

 

Lucas Trent is just a nice lie, the umpteenth in a lifetime of secrets, but Jenny would call this a white one, a nice one. One worth saying even if not worth forgiving.

She makes it all up for him. A nice town, nice people, friends, a routine. A past. There’s the downside of the radical nationalist and nazi-like organization who took over the place, but it’s nothing the Midnighter cannot take care of. And Jenny knows his father, he couldn’t jump straight into a boring mundane life with nobody to punch the lights out of.

It’s a nice work, if she could say so herself. Still, of course it doesn’t hold the scrutiny of her father’s stubborn research.

When he appears on the Carrier again, Door called straight into her room and still dressed in bloodied uniform, she holds still.  _This is it_ , she thinks. This is the moment she gets told she crossed the last line. This is how she loses her father forever.

Midnighter kisses her forehead. Jenny knows she’s already crying.

“You ever pull a stunt like that again and, daughter or no, we go a few rounds,” he threatens. She thinks he might mean it or not, but she’ll never get to see it. She won’t deceive him again, it wouldn’t work.

He leaves again, but the memory of his kiss is seared into her mind.

Midnighter doesn’t know how to be a lover, a husband, or a father. He doesn’t get that there’s no rulebook for any of those titles, that each is their own and the way he fills those molds out? It’s perfect, for Apollo and her.

 

 

Midnighter goes to Hell, punches Evil in the face and then lets his beaten ass be hauled out by his husband. Jenny rolls her eyes. “You _do_ love making Daddy Apollo carry you around.”

Midnighter smirks at her.

He’s at peace, lately. More than he’s been in years, since she was very little and very lost. Apollo said they didn’t see the other Jenny among the crowd of dead that tried to drag them down, so maybe that’s why they’re both taking this better than they ought to. Better than anyone who got stuck into Hell for days ought to, honestly.

Midnighter and Apollo moved back in together. This is Jenny breaking the new place in, smoking in the kitchen and watching her dads bicker over salt quantities. They don’t turn to her, just push each others every now and then.

It’s nice.

 

 

Jenny sometimes thinks about her sister. Sometimes. Yet, she never thinks about her mother, or her father. That’s a need that never touches her, not even when she deliberately points her thoughts in that direction and searches her heart for some kind of feeling.

She doesn’t miss her parents. A bit tired, a bit worse for wear, but they’re always there for her, anyway.

“Hurry up, Dads! I only have one century!”

 

 


	3. Take me through the darkness (to the break of the day)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not many people know of Midnighter, which was fine by him, he wasn't in the whole superhero shtick for the fame, after all. But somehow, for some unfathomable reason, even less people seem to know of Apollo.
> 
> Now, Midnighter can't let this offense stand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I really, _really_ , have to name things? Why. I'm notoriously bad at it. This is less serious than the title makes it seem; it's from ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (a man after midnight)", if it makes it seem less gloomy.
> 
> Warning for:  
> \- Minor Violence (I don't know why I'm tagging it - this is Midnighter we're talking about)  
> \- Implied Sexual Content (don't know why I'm tagging that either - this is Midnighter we're talking about)  
> \- Also known as, that one time M decided the whole world needed to know he had a hot husband and a few other choice TMIs.
> 
> Agap is offered Canon and replies "No Thanks I've Got My Own”

 

 

Apollo slips through the cracks, mostly. Midnighter has yet to wrap his brain around how it could ever be possible to _overlook_ such a man. Had the whole humanity gone blind?, did people lose their brains collectively? What the fuck was _not_ there to notice?!

“You’re so biased,” Apollo had laughed once, at his indignation. “Just because you love me, it’s not like every other person on this planet would too.”

“Well, they fucking should.”

Apollo didn’t seem to mind. His privacy gave him leisure to go out and explore the world as a human, as he could have if Bendix hadn’t burst into his life kicking down doors and sticking syringes where he had no business to.

He embraced the façade of normalcy with a smile and the enthusiasm of a child. He tried pottery and painting and embroidery. He knitted Jenny a crooked quilt with clumsy patches. He sewed himself a shirt in an improbable, tacky lime green and then laughed every time his husband and daughter stole and hid it. He learnt cards games and downloaded a bunch of silly apps on that smartphone Angie gave him, even if he kept cracking the screen protection with too harsh fingers. He tried make-up and a bunch of different crafts. He turned the dried path around their house into a beautiful garden where whatever he touched flourished.

Midnighter stood by and watched it happen like a worshipper admiring a god working on a miracle. When asked, he would offer useless inputs that would make Apollo laugh, just because Apollo’s laughter was the most beautiful sound in the world.

How does this taste? Like I love you. I love you too, dear, but this is just leftover meatloaf, and rather overcooked at that.

Apollo would kiss him and Midnighter’s brain would wrestle the computer into absolute silence; the flesh invading the circuits with prepotence, _stay the fuck down, now, we’re busy here._ His husband would notice as he pulled back, and smirk and pop his nose. _I win again_ , he’d joke, causing the computer’s rebooting process to fuzz louder, systems analyzing to find the loss, where’s the loss, how did we miss losing?

Yeah, how did he missed losing? He’d done it twice now, already. One should learn.

“Overthinking again, love,” Apollo would say from the couch, adding a soft kick to M’s thigh if he were close enough to touch.

Apollo was an explorer of everything, and Midnighter wasn’t. He rather liked playing the part of the one who stood on more familiar grounds and waited for his husband to return from whichever new thing he’d decide to try. He’d order take out and sprawl on the bed to listen to the latest tale as Apollo nuzzled his neck. Life was so unbearably good, sometimes.

Still. People forgetting about Apollo was just the pebble in his shoe. The milk stain on his coat. Like putting skinny leather pants on without talc or getting a hand job by a woman. It just _rubbed him the wrong way_.

Heh!

“M, come on,” Apollo held his hand, brought it up to kiss his split knuckles. “The world doesn’t revolve around me.”

“I’d murder everyone but Copernicus and Galileo for you, babe.”

Apollo was warm. His embrace the safest place on Earth. 

Midnighter went when he was called, kicked ass, saved the day. If people didn’t mention Apollo and there was no immediate, absolute need of him, his husband would shrug and wave him away. “I’m good,” he’d say. It’d also be the truth, because M liked to fight, but Apollo was just great at it. The will to harm had never been encrypted in his bones, no matter how cruel the attempt.

Then Midnighter would come back, wash the blood off his skin and get himself fucked into the mattress, Apollo smiling at him the whole time, softly. One hell of a welcome back.

But that was Midnighter’s perspective and, apparently, the world just had yet to learn to see things as he did. 

Back to the beginning, though: Apollo, forgotten. A fucking travesty, truly. Therefore—

“This is going to be good,” he muttered, through a split lip and blood stained teeth. He knew the smile that was curving his mouth, recognized it from the sting on his bruised cheekbone.

Whichever entity the Justice League had managed to piss off right now had a name with too many _xsh_ in its name to be properly pronounced by human tongue, not that Midnighter would have bothered probably. Prioritizing his tasks, as it happened.

Because when Batman’s own Fortune Cookie tried to hack into his doors, sending lines upon lines of code instead of just picking up a phone, send a call and say, _hey, dude, sorry, we’ve got a situation here, JL’s looking for help, are you free?_ , well. What was he supposed to do?

Showing up to the debriefing meeting, listening all about this species who evolved to be Kryptonians’ natural enemies and happened to have a molecular composition very similar to Kryptonite and to be coming to Earth to kill the last survivor? And about that, how nice, attempted genocide and it wasn’t even five in the evening. Maybe he could have listened when a bunch of self-entitled assholes explained to him that they were making up a team that could go toe-to-toe with Superman, because that was the kind of enemy they were dealing with?

Yeah. Sure. And then he'd die of old age without seeing hair or tail of this mystic enemy.

So, yeah, maybe he’d been a bit hasty in rushing in. The fact that the only ones to support his plan were Red Hood, Thick-Head Superboy and Tiny Murderous Robin probably should have rung a bell. For a moment, watching them argue with Mommy Bat and Daddy Supes, Midnighter had considered sending his own daughter a bouquet to thank her for cultivating a few braincells in her life. Not enough to learn how to work a coffee machine, but at least enough not to constantly throw herself in the line of danger.

He’d ordered the flowers online, then he’d suited up and got into the thick of it.

Okay, so maybe he'd been asking for it a bit.

But, _someone to go toe-to-toe with Superman except they need to be kryptonite immune, please_ , and they asked him?! He was watching Andrew toying with a sunflower when the message came. The adorable bastard was flashing a palm and making the poor plant turn on itself like a whirligig. 

The computer had liked his impetus almost as much as the old Bats. The string of code lines and red pop-ups of Death Danger were loud and obnoxious and absolutely unnecessary. Midnighter had already chosen the plan that ended up with him alive and the monster dead.

In his ear, through the comm he’d slipped in just because Grayson was a fucking asshole and played dirty with those fucking pleading pretty blues, there was an whole lot of chaos. Someone was screaming in worry in the background, probably Miniature Supes. Honestly, who the fuck let him out of the farm? What about curfew? Kids these days, really.

The rest of the crew was fighting and yelling and calling Midnighter all kinds of names. Someone was — _hastily_ — blaming his early departure on Dick, which sounded fair enough.

The tentacled bullet-proof pink...  _sponge?..._  was uglier than predicted. The holes in its body were gaping and pulsing and it appeared to have no eyes, but a round mouth with three rows of sharp fangs. It had twenty-seven tentacles with suction cups all over them, and two of those were currently wrapped around Midnighter’s chest and legs. As long as they stood far away from his crotch, it wasn’t the worst situation he’d ever been into.

The computer let a loose spark that sent a spasm through his legs. It seemed to say the rusty box wasn't quite as pleased with the initiatives taken in this mission.

Well, fuck it. It wasn’t _its_ crotch that risked to turn into the dirty fantasy of some Japanese early teen lacking parental affection.

The creature screeched. It somehow understood English, and when it spoke it was from every single one of its pores, like a creepy-ass chorus. “ _Where is the naked two-legged?!_ ” it asked, shaking Midnighter like a pepper-grinder. No good, especially since he was currently upside down and the ask for help had come just after lunch. “ _Speak, you crazy bug!_ ”

“God, I wish he were naked.”

Dick’s reasonable brother, the one who could appreciate the use in good old murder, Hood, cussed up a storm in his hear and faked gagging sounds. His voice was modulated so he probably still had his helmet on, and Midnighter wished him a steely stomach because throwing up in there would be a really shitty way to end a very shitty week.

Lower down, one of the holes in the spongy body of the beast widened further and the tentacles started pushing M in that direction. Which, _ugh_. Now it was his turn to gag. Shit, this was just one of those _good days_ , wasn’t it?

The creature yelled something again, but Midnighter’s brain was filled to the brim with cusses and annoyed remarks about a burning pie of some kind. His attention zeroed on it and cut off the sounds from his earpiece.

_Sacher Torte, M! I flew all the way to Belgium to buy the chocolate to make it! And I wasted all yesterday making the apricot jam! If it burns, I’ll break something._

_Can we skip the burning and go straight to breaking?_ , he thought back, grimacing as the tentacle holding him brought him closer to the other two superheroes. _Not to rush you, honey, but I think the thing’s trying to absorb me_. _Are you still far out?_

It did seem to be its intent. Absorbing, digesting _and_ stealing memories from its food, the computer supplied unhelpfully as it processed gigabytes of datas. Another - redacted - reason as to why the JL had been preaching caution, then.

As of now, Apollo’s low profile meant he would still be a secret if literally anyone else got absorbed, but there was no way the creature could pillage Midnighter’s brain without stumbling into him. He was all over his thoughts, after all.

_That was very romantic, M._

_Save me and I’ll be even more romantic. Rose petals and scented candles, the whole shtick._

_I’ll accept nipple clamps and your leather pants._

_On me or on you?_

_Yes._

A single laughter burst out of him before he could stop it. The creature hesitated, confused.

“ _Is he out of his mind? Nightwing, did you call for help from a madman?!_ ” Wonder Woman. She couldn’t understand his charm.

“ _I didn’t call him!_ ”

“ _Great, just great,_ ” Green Lantern grunted. " _The thing’s going to absorb the brain with the greatest killer-strategist AI on Earth, which is the worst case scenario becoming true, and we_ _don’t even know who called him._ ”

The ceiling came down.

Midnighter laughed again. Even with his eyes closed, the could tell the source of the blinding light and choking warmth that rippled through the bridge of the ship. He considered a couple teasing remarks, but the other presence in his mind shot them down rather fast.

“I _will_ leave you here.”

“Nah, you wouldn’t.” The computer buzzed statistics in his brain, but it too was in agreement that none of the past experiences supported such a scenario so it was just a quiet background noise that faded easily at the edges of his consciousness. “You love me too much.”

He opened his eyes and there Apollo was, holding Midnighter in his arms. Disgruntled, covered in alien grime — blood?, brains?, assorted gore? — and with a huge rip in his costume, from left shoulder to right hipbone. 

“Stunning,” because it had to be said.

Apollo shook his head, and his hair stuck to his cheeks, but he was smiling now. “You’re incorrigible.”

“You’re carrying me bridal-style. You know it’s been my favorite position since we got married!” Someone screamed in the comms. Midnighter pulled the thing out and threw it behind his back. He’d hear all of it later from Dick, anyway. “Now, I think I was promised a cake?”

“Oh, were you?”

“Or a spanking. I’m not picky, really.”

Apollo kissed him on the lips. It was a tender gesture, mindful of his injuries, but it held the warmth of filthy promises to be fulfilled. “Let’s get started with getting you home and out of this suit.”

“So, the spanking it is? Nice.”

“ _M._ That earpiece can pick up sounds in a mile radius.”

“Unless you’re going to spank me within a mile radius, I don’t see how this would be my problem.” If anything, it’d be Dick’s. Unless he’d already died from embarrassment and self-combustion. Rest in peace, poor Dick.

Apollo laughed, but sped away flying before M could rage on the pitiful even more.

Oh well. They made it in time to save the cake and fuck as it cooled down. _Total_ win.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My love to the Midpollo server, who validated my choice of ABBA's song for Midpollo. And also for the sex headcanons. This ace author here owes all the depiction of sexual intentions to the allosexual people in there <3
> 
> Also the new "The Wild Storm" is ending and I'm in denial so I'm throwing glorified headcanons around hoping DC will pull its head out of its ass and further stories about this adorable Murder Family.
> 
> My Tumblr is @agapantoblu


	4. Place your bet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Midnighter decides to scam a casino. That's it.
> 
> Apollo may or may not be amused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is Canon if not a guideline to ignore?
> 
> Agap is still aggressively loving this family, in case you were wondering.

 

Julian had seen the man once already, but he knew from other croupiers that he’d been there a few other times as well. 

He came in dressed smartly, but not overly ostentatiously. Dark slacks, dark shirt, a loosened grey tie; all neat and perfectly ironed, the tidbits of casualness clearly staged, but nothing from big famous brands. He wore no jewels except a golden band to the ring finger, but it was difficult to say whether it was a marriage ring since there were the words _Fuck You <3_ engraved on. He looked in his late forties or early fifties, well lived, and his dark red hair were shaved to the sides of the head but pushed back in a soft curl on top. The smirk he wore was that usually found on the lips of rich daddy’s boys when they came for the first time, feeling all powerful and smarter than anyone else in the room; but whereas those little shits were easily proved wrong, the man won. Steadily.

As a player, he was anomalous. He didn’t have a favored game or booth; if only, he seemed to avoid the slot machines, but slide easily between everything else. He didn’t seem to have any rituals that he followed before or after a game, either. He didn’t change table after a few losses, nor he seemed fazed by the change of croupier; he didn’t blow on dices and he didn’t get any girl to do either. As a matter of fact, he seemed absolutely uninterested in any woman, for as beautiful, who tried to approach him, but that might have had something to do with the appraising looks he occasionally sent the men who paid him attention. Still, he didn’t indulge with them either, so maybe not.

Julian had lost a noticeable sum to him the last time. Boss hadn’t been happy, and he’d grilled him to know if he’d noticed anything suspicious or whether he knew the man from somewhere. Which he didn’t, of course. He was not an idiot, he knew better than to try and cheat, in any casino but in this one especially.

Mr Spindley was rather conservative in his ways of dealing with cardsharpers and Julian liked his hands with five fingers each.

But the man? He clearly didn’t get the memo.

He walked to the table with golden-framed sunglasses and smiled a Julian as he sat down. He was wearing a three-piece suit in all black shades, this time, and he had a full tumbler of whiskey in his hand.

After the third time the man showed up and won, there had been a security pin on him. Which meant that Julian, if reluctantly, pushed one of the hidden buttons under the table to alert that he had a situation on his hands. “Hello, sir,” he said though, keeping an open smile and making a welcoming gesture with the other hand toward the cards. “Would you like to join us?”

“Why not? I’m already emptying your liquor stashes, I might as well empty some of your pockets too.”

Julian felt almost pitying. The man was going to get it. So. Bad.

Poker was a big hit every night, but it was a toss up between good players after the thrill of the game and drunken people too young for their money hoping for the lucky strike. At the moment, there was only a young man falling in the latter category, at Julian’s booth; the other two players were a man in his thirties and a woman around forty-five. They all seemed uninterested in the newcomer until three hands in.

Julian could feel anxiety mounting in himself, for the man who kept winning with little care about the increasing number of security guys training their eyes on him.

He drunk his whole glass and got another from a passing waiter, finishing that too before he finally got up from his chair, terribly heavier with big-value fiches. When he stood, he swayed a bit, predictably, and Julian moved to intervene, but another hand reached the man’s bicep first.

Julian was good at hiding his reactions, it came with the job, but it was always hard to hide his shiver when he saw Johnny.

 

 

Johnny was, predictably, a fake name. It was almost a necessity when you worked in Johnny’s field for as long as he did. You got on a lot of people’s bad side, you stock up on people that want revenge on you and a lot of them are small fishes but some can occasionally be sharks.

Johnny was not sure what the deal was, with this man.

The woman sitting beside him would have been all too happy to let him fall on his ass, from the look of her face and the short piles of fiches in front of her, but Julian looked more worried. Clearly, the guy knew what was going to happen. Still, Johnny smiled at him, teeth shining white. “I’ll help this gentleman to the exit,” he said. “Feel free to keep on.”

The man giggled at his words. It wasn’t weird as a thing, he was clearly drunk off his ass, but he seemed like the whole situation was leading up to something funny, for him. 

“You’re really out of it, aren’t you?” Johnny said, not really to anyone as the man leant almost his whole weight on him. “Too bad. Hope you’re still there enough to tell me how you’ve been cheating up ’til now, because Boss ain’t going to let you leave until he got his answers.”

Not too horrible. Johnny was an heavy hitter for the simple reason that he liked to hit things — _people_ — heavily.

The man was meek through the whole saloon, even to the back alley and even when he realized there were other men, all burly and in rather anonymous clothes, waiting for him by the trashcans. As a matter of fact, his only reaction to the crowd was to count them, obnoxiously loud and with a finger pointing.

“…five and six,” he finished, indicating Johnny’s face directly. “Oh, good. It’s gonna be fun.”

He was slurring his speech only slightly, but the words betrayed how drunk he was quite enough. Who was so dumb? 

“Okay, dude,” Johnny said, roughly letting go and pushing him toward the centre of the circle. The man cussed a storm but managed to keep his balance. “How about you start telling us what’s your little secret before anyone gets hurt?”

“Damn, I’m dead meat if I ruin this suit, you asshole,” the man was muttering, but he didn’t seem to be waiting for an answer. As a matter of fact, he fixed his sleeves and dusted his shoulders — and didn’t he look more coordinated already?, wasn’t he struggling to even stand just a moment ago? —, before looking back to them, one after the other, in the faces. “Oh, man, I’d really love a good brawl right now,” he sighed, wistfully. He gestured with his clothes with a resigned look. “But, as I said, the suit.”

“This is the weirdest drunkard I’ve ever seen,” one of the guys muttered and Johnny silently agreed. But again, they weren’t paid to talk it out with the dude, right?

Johnny took a step forward and grabbed a fistful of the man’s clothes. The other looked down at his hand with a blank face. “I’m gonna fuck up more than just your shitty suit, if you don’t start answering right now.”

“Asshole,—“ the man said, and his voice was completely different from before. It was low and sober and horribly dangerous, “—this shitty suit is a present from my husband.”

Johnny couldn’t see much past that. There was a huge flash of light, blinding and absolutely scorching, and then something caught him in the chest. He felt weightless for a second, then pain exploded in his back and nape.

Everything went black.

 

 

Midnighter groaned as he watched Joshua or whatever slam against the wall and crumple, unconscious, to the ground. 

“Oh, come on!” he tried, but by the time he’d turned around the other five men had all been dealt with too. He turned to the only other figure left standing. “Really? You couldn’t have let me have any? Just _one_?”

Apollo seemed to ignore him at first. He was wearing a white button-up with a pink waistcoat, and matching pink dress pants with a slight high waist, tied with a leather belt and falling to his feet. He was wearing pink décolleté with heels to make him even taller than he already was, like he needed it. His hair were braided only for a short trait, from the middle of his nape to just about the high of his neck, so they kept out of his face but fell in loose curls on his shoulders and back. He was checking the wedding ring with a hand and lightly touching the sun medallion at his neck, the chain long to his chest, with the other to make sure neither had melt when he’d unleashed his powers.

_Duh_. Midnighter had the ring made especially for him and the sun was a present from Jenny, so surely she’d thought about the heat resistance too.

Finally, Apollo turned. And he crossed his arms and arched a brow and overall used the I’m Disappointed In Your Childishness look. There was also a tilt to his mouth that said he was a bit amused, but reluctantly so, and therefore it was better not to point it out yet.

“This is the third casino, M,” he started, and Midnighter raised a palm to stop him immediately.

“For all means and purposes, this is the first casino, actually.”

Apollo tilted his head to a side. “ _Henry Bendix_ first, _Dick Grayson_ second,” he said, and this time it was impossible not to notice the amusement in his voice. “Whose name did you use, now?”

Midnighter grinned. “ _Clark Kent_.”

“ _M_!”

“In my defense, the real Bruce Wayne has already been here, so that wouldn’t have worked.”

Finally, Apollo laughed openly. He let his arms open and M wasted no time walking right into them. If he stepped over someone’s hand in the process, that was absolutely an accident and up to the prosecutor to prove otherwise. 

Of course, Apollo’s chest was warm and big and rather soft for the amount of muscles working underneath the skin. He smelled of mint and licorice. He pulled from the embrace just enough to take a good look at his husband’s face. “Did you rob a candy store again?”

There wasn’t a hint of regret in the man’s face as he beamed and said, teasingly, “I paid for everything I got.”

“Well, shit, now I’m going to have to cheat off another casino to pay that bill!”

It was nice, to see Apollo laugh so freely, dress as he wanted, eating candies and punching assholes whenever he wanted. It had a levity and it left M with a feeling of appeasement and contentment that was so good he’d happily spend the rest of his life chasing after it, like an addiction.

There it was: he was addicted to happy Apollo. Absolutely dependent. Give him his next fix now.

Apollo kissed the tip of his nose. “I’d rather you avoided being pulled in dark alleys by overpaid bullies, actually.”

“Well, if you keep taking them out and not leaving me any fun, I actually might!”

One of the thugs groaned. Midnighter kicked a pebble with just enough force that it bounced off the wall behind Apollo, returned and lodged itself into the thug’s forehead and brain. Oh well.

Apollo’s expression turned scolding. “This is why I don’t let you take care of it on your own,” he huffed. “You always kill them!”

“They deserve it!”

“You’d get blood on every decent suit you have, and may I remind you that you only own three because you refuse to stand still for a tailor.”

“Pointy things aimed at my crotch are a no-no for the metal box in my brain.”

Apollo shook his head. “You’re impossible.”

“And yet, here you are.”

The was a thrill, a pleasure, in complimenting Apollo. Every reaction was like a jewel in a crown, never enough. Midnighter had been away from this man enough to wish to spend every moment together reminding him of how absolutely wonderful, amazing, and perfect he was.

Apollo always kissed him best, after a surprise praise.

Sounds came from behind the door, steps and harried voices, and M had to pull back from the kiss when Apollo pushed at his chest. “We could stay and punch some more,” he tried anyway, but without real hope.

Indeed, Apollo shook his head. “I left the hot chocolate on the stove and the re-run of _The Mask of Matches Malone!_ starts in fifteen minutes.”

“The episode where the Birds of Prey sing the song about Aquaman’s small dick and Batman getting pegged?”

“That one.”

“Ugh… Okay!” He wrapped his arms tightly around Apollo’s neck and jumped slightly, just enough for his husband to put an arm behind his knees and one behind his back. “But you’re putting vodka in my hot-chocolate.”

He almost missed it, with the sound of Apollo taking off from ground, but his ears caught tail of, “—already done it,” and he laughed as they flew back home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't ask me how the Batman animated series exist in this universe. They just do. They do portray Batman's secret identity as Bruce Wayne but since Bruce Wayne is also the cartoons' sponsor people just assume he's having a laugh at it and don't take it seriously. It's a perfect cover story.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: @agapantoblu


End file.
